Swing and a Miss: Shoeless Joe Jackson Supporters Denied Hall of Fame Bid, Again

Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred rejected an attempt to overturn a lifetime ban and consider Shoeless Joe Jackson for the Baseball Hall of Fame. Supporters of legendary baseball star of the 1919 Chicago White Sox–who allegedly threw the World Series to the Cincinnati Reds–made Manfred’s letter public on their Facebook page.

“I agree with that determination and conclude that it would not be appropriate for me to re-open this matter,” Manfred wrote to the officials at the Joe Jackson Museum in Greenville, S.C. “Finally, I have reviewed our records concerning the responses of of both Commissioner Giamatti and Commissioner Vincent, who declined to reconsider Mr. Jackson’s case. Commissioner Giamatti determined that ‘The Jackson case is now best given to historical analysis and debate as opposed to a present-day review with an eye to reinstatement.'”

Museum curator Arlene Marcley had written Manfred in June and he made his decision known in July. Jackson held a lifetime .356 batting average–the third-highest of all time–but was banned in 1920 when he and seven other players were accused of taking $5,000 each to lose the series. Jackson’s supporters have repeatedly disputed that he took part in game-fixing, and note that he batted .375 with a then-record 12 hits, and play flawlessly in the outfield during that particular World Series. After Jackson was indicted, legend has it that a youngster confronted him outside court, and pleaded, “Say it ain’t so, Joe.”

All eight players were eventually acquitted at trial, but then-Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis banned all 8 of them for life. Subsequent MLB officials have refused to overturn the ban and make Jackson eligible to be in the Hall of Fame. Landis died in 1951.